David H. S. Morgan

David Morgan was born in 1947, the son of a former Fleet Air Arm Seafire pilot. He attended Sr Roger Manwoods Grammer School in Sandwhich and always wanted to fly. This ambition suffered a setback in 1964 when it was discovered that he had a serious heart defect. After surgery, however, he joined the Royal Navy and trained as a helicopter pilot at RNAS Culdrose before moving to the Royal Air Force in 1969 flying Wessex from RAF Odiham. After a ground tour in Germany, he converted to the Harrier GR3 and spent a further 4 years in Germany flying with No3(F) Sqn.

In February 1982 he returned to UK as an exchange pilot on the Sea Harrier, based at RNAS Yeovilton and two months later found himself as one of the few RAF pilots flying Sea Harriers in the Falklands conflict. Between May and June 1982 he flew over 50 SHAR missions, both ground attack and Combat Air Patrol. His Sea Harrier was damaged by anti-aircraft fire over Stanley Airfield on the first raid, on 1st May but he managed to return to HMS Hermes safely. 8 days later, he and his wing-man attacked and sunk an Argentine trawler, which had been monitoring the movements of the task force.

On 23rd May, he was credited with the downing of 2 Argentine helicopters, damaging a third on the ground and on 8th June he shot down 2 A-4 Skyhawk fighters with Sidewinder missiles, engaging a third with guns, before it was downed by his wing-man. The Skyhawks were destroyed whilst attacking landing craft to the south of Bluff Cove, where the Welsh Guards had recently been attacked. This action earned him the award of the Distinguished Service Cross, only the second such award to an RAF pilot since 1945. This engagement made him the last RAF pilot to ever shoot down an enemy aircraft in combat. In addition to these actions, he found time to fly a few sorties in a Wessex 5!

After the Falklands David spent some time as a staff pilot on 899 NAS at Yeovilton, before transferring back to the Royal Navy and serving as the Air Warfare Instructor and later, Senior Pilot of 801 NAS. Between 1983 and leaving the Navy in 1992, he flew over 200 Sea Harrier displays including SBAC Farnborough, IAT Greenham Common and the Hanover Air Show. During his time at Yeovilton, he served on the carriers Hermes, Invincible, Illustroius and Ark Royal and on every one of the Sea Harrier squadrons, including 809 NAS which was formed purely for the Falklands conflict. Since the conflict he has become firm friends with the Argentine Skyhawk pilot who escaped from the engagement on 8th June 1982.

David is married with two grown children and now lives near Shaftesbury, in Dorset. He flew a total of 4700 hours in the forces (2500 on Harriers) and is now a commercial pilot flying the Boeing 747-400, with a total of over 14,000 hours flying. He is part owner of Yak 50 G-SVET, based at Compton Abbas near Shaftesbury and has been displaying the Yak for 8 years. His book Hostile Skies covering his Falklands exploits, has recently been published by Orion Books.